Indies Inferno: Cutter Kauai Sea Adventures, #4

By Edward Hochsmann

When the cover story becomes more dangerous than the main mission...

Join the crew of the small Coast Guard cutter Kauai on an exhilarating sea adventure like no other. Tasked with a covert intelligence operation, their mission takes an unexpected turn when a volcanic eruption rocks the shores of the picturesque Caribbean island of Saint Ignatius.

Lieutenant Ben Wyporek, recently married and serving as the second in command, must navigate the challenges of his demanding role while also supporting his neurodiverse soulmate. Meanwhile, Kauai's captain, Haley Reardon, discovers that command doesn't have to mean loneliness as she embarks on a risky romance with the charming and enigmatic Defense Intelligence Agency spy Peter Simmons.

Within this explosive adventure, the crew of the Kauai also thwarts an eco-terrorist plot to sabotage an oil tanker, saving countless lives. But their heroism doesn't end there, as they valiantly rescue dozens of individuals trapped aboard a burning and sinking dive boat. Amidst the chaos, Cadet Marcus Porter's Academy summer internship takes an unforeseen and treacherous turn, thrusting him into both a spine-tingling adventure and a blossoming romance with the captivating young island administrator, Isabelle Jones.

This page-turning and heart-pounding tale immerses readers in a gripping maritime escapade where duty, love, and daring collide. Will the crew of the Kauai emerge victorious against both natural and man-made threats? Prepare to embark on an unforgettable voyage filled with suspense, heroism, and unexpected connections that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

 

"Dive in to an exciting sea thriller featuring the small Coast Guard cutter Kauai, assigned to a covert intelligence operation, but caught up in rescue effort during a volcanic eruption on the small Caribbean island of Saint Ignatius. Along the way, Kauai's crew foils an eco-terrorist attack on an oil tanker, saves dozens of people from a burning and sinking dive boat and carries out a dangerous espionage mission. Join the crew of Kauai as they face a high stakes sea odyssey with bravery, loyalty, friendship, and humor in a thrilling maritime adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final page is turned.

"Riveting maritime drama with explosively high stakes and a consistent edge of gritty realism, Indies Inferno by Edward M. Hochsmann is a military procedural flavored with a romantically entangled and unforgettable crew. When a natural disaster interrupts a classified mission, the crew must balance duty to their country with the humane responsibility to preserve life. Boosted in believability by the author's own experience, the prose is immersive, the action is steeped in authentic suspense, and the dialogue crackles with realism. Drawing on diverse themes of emotional attachment, patriotism, the trauma of disaster, and law enforcement ethics, this latest installment of Hochsmann's series is a multifaceted and gripping read."
The Independent Review of Books
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward M. Hochsmann
• Release date: Nov 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781956777918

Edward Hochsmann

Edward Hochsmann is a retired U. S. Coast Guard search and rescue and law enforcement professional and author of the military thriller novel series Engage at Dawn.  The veteran mariner, aviator, college professor, and defense analyst has added “author” to his list of experiences.  Ed likes reading, police procedurals, contemporary music on the road, and classical music in the office.  After a career traveling from Australia in the west to Italy and Germany in the east, Ed has settled into a quiet life in the Florida Panhandle to focus on writing (and not shoveling snow!)

Book preview

Indies Inferno

Edward M. Hochsmann

Haldago Bay Studio

Copyright © 2023 Edward M. Hochsmann

E-book ISBN: 978-1-956777-91-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-956777-06-2

All rights reserved.

Edward M. Hochsmann asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews and properly attributed to the author. This assertion likewise extends to all named characters in this book and the concept of USCGC Kauai, none of which may be used in other works without the written permission of the author. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed Attention: Permissions at [e-mail].

Edward M. Hochsmann

PO Box 209

Milton, Florida 32572

www.edwardhochsmann.com

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks, and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the text have endorsed the book.

Cover and illustrations by: SpudzArt©

This book is dedicated to my parents, who successfully managed to raise a son in challenging times and become a good friend to him after he left home to join the service. It is also dedicated to the Coast Guard, the oldest continuous seagoing service of the United States, and its complement of supremely skilled, committed, and courageous professionals. They stand the watch and lay their lives on the line every day to save others, defend the homeland, protect the environment, and promote maritime commerce.

Semper Paratus

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Main Characters

Select Technical Terms

Prologue

Epigraph

Part I

Dilemma

Hot Pursuit

Accessory

New Mission

Guardian

Misdirection

Part II

Distress

Conflagration

Paradise

OpTempo

The Silence of Death

Alarm

Grim Prognosis

Part III

Sortie

Undercover

Exfiltration

Inferno

Catastrophe

Uncertainty

Recovery

Resolution

Coda

Notes from the Author

Acknowledgement

Books By This Author

Coming in 2025

About The Author

Main Characters

Haley Reardon, Lieutenant, U.S. Coast Guard. Haley is a superbly competent, hard-charging young officer working her dream job—command of the patrol boat Kauai on the front lines of Coast Guard operations. She is realizing that having a loving relationship is not necessarily a liability for a commander and is exploring a relationship with DIA Agent Simmons.

Benjamin Ben Wyporek, Lieutenant, U.S. Coast Guard. Ben is the executive officer or second in command of the Coast Guard cutter Kauai. He is a young but experienced and heroic officer, holding the complete trust of both Haley and the crew. Ben is trying to balance his extremely demanding and dangerous job with his devotion to his new) wife Victoria, the love of his life.

Victoria Carpenter Wyporek. Victoria is a neuro-diverse mathematical genius, formerly an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, who met Ben during a joint operation almost a year ago. Her mild autism condition makes some ordinary life activities challenging. She is deeply in love with Ben, who helped her leave her safe but sheltered and unfulfilling existence. She struggles with her fear for Ben’s safety when he is out on missions.

Dr. Peter Simmons. Simmons is a field agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has a talent for deception, which has led to his success as a DIA field agent but is the antithesis of Ben’s ethos. Simmons also has a risk-seeking bent that borders on pathology. He shares a cordial relationship with Ben and is supportive of his relationship with Victoria, his protégé and sister of his beloved late fiancée. He met Haley at Ben and Victoria’s wedding and has been becoming closer to her since then.

Marcus Porter, Cadet First Class, U.S. Coast Guard. Marcus is a young officer trainee on an Academy summer intern program with the Coast Guard UAV team on the island of St. Ignatius. He is in for far more adventure than he expected.

Isabelle Jones. The beautiful young deputy administrator of St. Ignatius. Just a couple of years out of college, she is the youngest elected official in the island’s history and is the liaison with the Coast Guard and U.S. Geological Survey teams.

Select Technical Terms

Prologue

The environmental extremist group Climate Annihilation Response Emergency, or CARE, began as the U.S. version of similar movements in Europe dedicated to ending petroleum production. The U.S. group’s members were as fervent in their beliefs that the world’s end from climate change was nigh as their European counterparts and started off employing their tactics of vandalizing artwork and disrupting traffic in major cities. But the U.S. is not Europe, and it was only a matter of time before activities such as these escalated into deadly violence. The break point involved a grieving father whose young daughter had died in an ambulance blocked from reaching a hospital by a CARE protest. Outraged by their public, unrepentant dismissal of her death, he gunned down and killed six of the group at another CARE protest the following week before being killed by the police.

It was a galvanizing development. The public, the mainstream press, and the government had already had their fill of the group’s sanctimonious rhetoric and intransigent behavior, and this new threat to public safety was the last straw. A zero-tolerance policy was quickly enacted by municipalities across the country, dusting off and vigorously enforcing existing permit regulations for public gatherings. CARE members who attempted further disruptions were instantly arrested, removed by force, and held for prosecution to the maximum extent of the law. The litigation normally attending such heavy-handed government policy was conspicuously absent—not even the American Civil Liberties Union would take CARE’s phone calls by this point.

Rational people would take stock of the event and the intense and near-universal negative reaction to their approach to engage in some self-reflection. Many CARE members did and quickly disassociated themselves from the movement. Unfortunately, this left a rump of the most fanatical members, dedicated to the furtherance of the cause by any means available. They were well-supported in this by wealthy dilettantes, industrialists seeking profits in green products, and other shadowy organizations interested in the destabilization of society. Unlike the radical groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s, CARE did not have to support itself via bank robberies or other illegal activities that would draw the attention of law enforcement. They could lie low, planning and gathering the resources needed for a first strike of maximum impact.

As CARE’s membership dwindled and activity subsided, law enforcement interest in the group waned and intelligence focus shifted to higher-priority threats. Plans to infiltrate undercover officers into the organization were shelved and operations scaled back to passive monitoring of the social media activity of known group members. The law enforcement community missed the relocation of CARE’s center of gravity to Florida and the group’s research into potential targets for direct action.

The planners managing CARE knew they had only one shot—after any attack, the terrorist designation would quickly follow and end any chance of further operations in the U.S. The first one had to be big, not some trivial pinprick like blowing up a gas station or two. They considered and discarded options for attacks on airports and airliners, railroads, and key land-based infrastructure. The chief problem was the one enduring legacy of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: the hardening of such targets against threats posed by foreign and domestic terrorists. These were not invulnerable, but security was thorough and resilient enough to defeat any but the most dedicated and skilled attackers. Besides, mass casualties would just intensify the public animus toward the organization with no chance of advancing the cause.

Like an airport attack, an assault on a vessel moored in a U.S. port was considered and discarded—security in the significant harbors was as tight as a major airport and few were close enough to highly populated areas to achieve the desired audience factor. Besides, the firefighting and response capabilities of these facilities were substantial and likely to contain and extinguish any fires started in the attack.

Vessels underway, on the other hand, were far more vulnerable. If one could be effectively attacked within sight of a large population area, the impact could be huge. The problems were timing and firepower. A ship is generally in sight of land only for brief windows of time while entering and leaving port, leaving little room for error in the attack’s timing. The other problem is that ships are very large, heavy things, designed to survive damage from most natural threats. Gunfire, small rockets, and even direct impact by explosive-laden UAVs were unlikely to cause much damage. A large amount of explosives, positioned right next to the hull on detonation, would be required. This left a small, fast vessel acting as a powerful torpedo as the best option.

After resolving the question of the delivery vehicle, manning became the next problem. There was no question that this would be a one-way mission, and the planners were worried about leaving its success to the resolve of a human operator, even among the fanatics of CARE. Early on, they decided that a remotely piloted boat was the best option, teamed with another vessel that would guide the boat to its target via on-board video camera and radio control. The purchase and clandestine rigging of a large recreational boat for remote control was an easy undertaking.

For the payload, the planners knew authorities would be watching for purchases of explosives and even large quantities of precursors. They carefully sent CARE operatives to purchase small amounts of ammonium nitrate, ostensibly for agricultural use. Over time, they accumulated enough of the compound and powdered aluminum to fill four out of five of the fuel tanks on the boat. These were sealed, awaiting the time of launch, when gasoline would be added as the boat was fueled for the mission.

For the target, the planners considered and discarded the idea of attacking a cruise ship. It could kill many people, but the ships were so big that sinking or even disabling one would be highly unlikely. Like an attack on an airport or airliner, it would hurt more than help the cause. Likewise, the idea of an attack on a large cargo vessel was dismissed. They eventually decided that an attack on a medium-sized tanker bringing in refined fuel would provide a spectacular visual and the clean-up would remind everyone of the horrors of continued dependence on oil.

Now, they had the plan and weapon available. It was only a matter of awaiting the arrival of a suitable target.

I came into a place void of all light, which bellows like the sea in tempest, when it is combated by warring winds.

Canto V of Inferno, Part I of Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Part I

Sport powerboat pursued by Coast Guard Cutter Kauai

Dilemma

USCG Cutter Kauai, North Atlantic Ocean, eleven nautical miles southeast of Port Canaveral, Florida

11:13EDT, 12 June

Haley

Please, God. I don’t want to have to kill anyone today!

Lieutenant Haley Reardon, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Kauai, took another long look at the suspect boat through her binoculars and then swung her gaze back to the tactical screen. They were closing to five hundred yards range and Chief Hopkins had already given the helm order to bring them on a parallel course with the target. Within one minute, Haley would have to make the most difficult decision of her career.

Every sensor they had, from the hyperspectral imaging camera on the unmanned aircraft flying overhead, the high-resolution electro-optical camera on Kauai’s mast, and now her own eyes screamed this boat was loaded with explosives and unmanned—essentially, a robotic improvised explosive device aimed straight at the tanker they were there to protect.

Her hands shook as she thought, but what if I’m wrong and this turns out to be just another boat with a bunch of CARE loons hiding somewhere aboard?

It would not be the first time she had given the order for lethal fire—the other occurred six months previously at the Haitian island of Ile Ste. Michel. They were shooting back in self-defense on that occasion, protecting Kauai’s retreating small boat from machine gun fire from a Chinese armored car. This was different—an American boat that was not shooting at them, but giving every sign of being a deadly bomb. She wondered at how in such a short time this turned from just another ordinary patrol to a matter of life and death.

Fifteen minutes earlier…

For the third time in the last two weeks, the Kauai was at General Quarters Condition One with her crew in combat helmets and ballistic vests and weapons manned and loaded. It was sunny and getting quite warm already, typical June weather for Florida’s Atlantic Coast. Haley was thankful to be inside the air-conditioned bridge when wearing the heavy protective equipment and felt sorry for the two crewmen standing outside at their fifty-caliber machine guns.

Haley leaned forward in her command chair on the bridge, scanning between the video screens on the Fire Control/Command and Control console, known as the FC3. The left-hand screen showed the real-time video feed from the electro-optical camera on the cutter’s mast—it was trained on the tanker Paul Morris, following three hundred yards behind them. Kauai’s position and any targets being tracked in the vicinity were shown superimposed on the local geography on the tactical display on the right-hand screen. The FC3 system fused information from multiple sources into the target display, both the feeds from Kauai’s radar and the AeroVironment T-20 unmanned aerial vehicle currently loitering overhead.

The mission was close escort, this time leading a pair of response boats from Station Cape Canaveral and shepherding a medium-sized tanker of fifty-two thousand tons carrying a split load of diesel fuel and unleaded gasoline for offload ashore, conveniently in Kauai’s homeport of Port Canaveral, Florida. This was normally a job for a single response boat or maybe the eighty-seven-foot patrol boat homeported in Cape Canaveral, not a highly equipped, special operations cutter. But these were not normal times.

The environmental extremist group CARE had become a genuine physical threat over the past month, and special intelligence suggested they were preparing for a public act of extreme violence somewhere in Florida to focus attention on their cause. Forcibly boarding and setting a sizeable tanker afire within sight of the beaches and generating a massive cleanup effort would make a significant impression, both psychologically and economically. This made industrial ports like Tampa, Jacksonville, and Port Canaveral prime targets, and internal security was beefed-up accordingly. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard, along with Brevard County Sherriff and port authority police patrol boats, covered the port approaches and internal waters to intercept and ward off any suspected attackers of transiting vessels. Haley shook her head at the thought that anyone with a functioning brain would conclude this would be a sound approach to combat climate change, but it was a sign of the pervasive and increasing insanity of the world.

Haley was typical of a Coast Guard officer in command of a patrol boat. Just shy of her thirty-first birthday, she received her commission eight years previously on graduation from the Coast Guard Academy. A tallish five-foot-eight with shoulder-length dark hair and gray eyes, she was extremely fit, with a slim, athletic build. She had taken command of Kauai a little over six months ago, overcoming the challenge of succeeding an extremely successful, almost beloved predecessor, and quickly winning the respect and affection of the crew as they had won hers.

Kauai was an Island Class (Block D) patrol boat, one-hundred-ten feet long with a crew of two officers and fourteen enlisted personnel. She was an old boat, beyond twenty-five years on a design meant to last only fifteen, and was among the last of her class still in commission. She should have been decommissioned by now, but a year and a half previously, she received a stay of execution after being swept up into an extremely classified mission in the Florida Keys.

During a law enforcement patrol off Key West, Kauai had discovered a wrecked and derelict sailboat laden with illegal drugs. After reporting the find, they were drawn into a search for a lost Russian nuclear-tipped missile, launched by accident after a mid-air collision between a Russian bomber and U.S. fighter off-shore of Miami. Realizing the boat had been wrecked by a near-miss by the missile, Kauai’s crew, teamed up with a Defense Intelligence Agency operative, traced its drift back to the impact point. After a vicious firefight with the wrecked boat’s crime syndicate owners, Kauai’s crew secured the live nuclear warhead, preventing a devastating explosion that would have likely ignited a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia.

Recognizing the high caliber of her crew and Kauai’s potential to respond quickly and discreetly to similar national crises, the Director of National Intelligence invested a considerable sum of money to extend the cutter’s life, upgrade her powerplant and electronics, and cycle select members of her crew through advanced tactical training. The boat’s homeport was moved from Miami to Port Canaveral, nominally to serve as the permanent range safety cutter for the Cape Canaveral rocket launch facility, but actually as the on-call platform for sensitive and covert intelligence missions in South Florida, The Bahamas, and the Caribbean. There had been two such missions since the upgrade. The first occurred about eight months before Haley’s arrival and the second, the mission to the Haitian island, within days of Haley’s assumption of command.

Haley glanced again at the FC3’s tactical display, now showing two small targets to their north and nearly two dozen to their south. The map also showed the boundary line of the temporary security zone established for the arrival of the tanker, extending two miles on either side of the channel leading into Port Canaveral. This area was no stranger to security zones—one was always established from the shore to around twelve miles downrange during rocket launches from Cape Canaveral to provide safe clearance from falling debris in the event of a post-launch malfunction or abort. However, needing to impose one to prevent a terrorist act was unsettling enough—to do it for the third time in a fortnight was downright disturbing.

They had to regard any of those targets milling around seemingly at random just south of the security zone boundary as a potential threat, and nearly all displayed the infuriating white abbreviation UNK indicating that their name or registration numbers had not been determined. Haley knew most, if not all, those contacts were innocent sport fishers, recreational boats, and daysailers. Their behavior thus far had suggested nothing else and, despite the boredom associated with this type of operation, Haley hoped it would continue to be a quiet day.

The two Station Cape Canaveral response boats were cruising in line about a mile south of Kauai’s track, halfway to the zone boundary. These were the pouncers Haley would dispatch to close rapidly on any boat penetrating the zone to warn them off or, if necessary, try to stop them. Kauai was the last line of defense and would engage any non-compliant boats getting past the response boats. Haley’s orders were clear: with the terrorism threat posed by CARE, this was a national defense mission. Any vessel breaking through the response boats would be considered as having disclosed deadly intent—Haley would use non-lethal means to stop it, if practicable. But, one way or another, that vessel would be stopped before it reached the tanker.

Haley looked up as Chief Operations Specialist Emilia Hopkins strolled across the bridge deck to check the radar display on her normal Officer-of-the-Deck sweep. Hopkins was the old hand on Kauai, the crewmember with the longest tenure, having joined some three years earlier as a petty officer first class and remaining on board after being promoted to chief petty officer. She was tall—she had two inches on Haley—and was a fit thirty-four-year-old widowed mother of thirteen- and eleven-year-old sons. Hopkins shared a house with her mother, who looked after the boys when she was at sea. She led the Operations Division and was the premier ship driver on Kauai—like now, she was the go-to OOD for any unusual situation. Haley smiled and nodded when Hopkins glanced her way, receiving a smile and a nod.

Captain, I have three contacts moving into the buffer zone from the south, Electronics Technician First Class Joe Williams said from his seat at the center position of the FC3 console. As the commanding officer, Haley was addressed as Captain aboard Kauai.

Let’s move one down. Whose turn is it, Williams?

Four-Two-Three, ma’am, Williams replied, referring to the boat’s hull number.

Very well. Send him down to the line.

Aye, aye, ma’am. Williams keyed the transmit button for his headset and said, Four-Two-Three, Orchid, head two-one-five for the intercept of targets bearing one-eight-three, two-zero-seven, and two-four-one from you. Hold at the security zone boundary. Over. They had set up an area stretching a mile beyond the security zone boundary to the south as a buffer zone to allow Haley time to position the station boats to intercept a contact before it entered the security zone proper. The protocol was for the boat to activate its flashing blue law enforcement light and begin audio warnings for a target approaching within a quarter mile of the security zone boundary. If the target did not stop, the boat would execute a non-compliant stop-and-board.

After three seconds, the reply came from the speaker. Orchid, Four-Two-Three, WILCO, heading two-one-five. I have three rec boats in sight on those bearings. Over.

Four-Two-Three, Orchid, roger, those are your bogies, Williams replied. Williams was also an old hand on Kauai—only Hopkins and Chief Machinery Technician James Drake had been aboard longer. He was a solid performer who loved his work maintaining electronics and, especially, being the fire control master operating the cutter’s automated weapon systems—the non-lethal entangling weapon colloquially known as the Squid and the twenty-five-millimeter auto-cannon mounted on the cutter’s forward deck. Both were loaded and hot right now, ready to be directed against a potential target by Williams with a few keystrokes and slight movements of his joystick.

To Williams’s right sat Operations Specialist Third Class Natalya Zuccaro, performing quartermaster duties of navigation and keeping the electronic logbook. Zuccaro was among the newer members of the crew and one of the youngest at twenty-one. She was not a top performer in Haley’s estimation—good enough to remain on board, but not much more. Haley knew Hopkins shared this opinion and when they occasionally discussed the young petty officer, she would usually roll her eyes or shake her head, and simply say, It’s Gen Z, Captain. They’re hit or miss! The thought that Haley had, like Hopkins, become a member of the older generation at the ripe old age of thirty never failed to amuse her.

Chief Avionics Electrical Technician Erich Fritz Deffler occupied the third and last seat at the FC3 console to Williams’s left. He was the Air Mission Commander for the UAV, controlling its movements and sensors as it orbited lazily over the security zone’s southern boundary line. Deffler was not part of Kauai’s standing crew, but was assigned to the Coast Guard’s aviation deployment center in Jacksonville. When Kauai needed UAV support, he usually led the aviation team, allowing him to be together with Hopkins. They had met in his first deployment on Kauai eighteen months ago and had built a romantic relationship since. Haley was not keen on romance between members aboard the same boat, but, technically, Deffler was not one of her guys. As with Hopkins, Haley liked Deffler personally and deeply respected and appreciated his skills. So, as long as he and Hopkins remained consummate professionals when aboard the boat, she could live with it—when they were off duty ashore, they could do as they pleased as far as she was concerned.

Haley’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Ben Wyporek, stood silently on her right, where he could see the tactical display. He was a supernumerary on the bridge during the operation, there to maintain situational awareness in case he had to fill in for Haley or Hopkins or lead a boarding crew in a non-compliant vessel situation. Ben’s official title was Executive Officer, but he was generally referred to by the position’s abbreviation XO. He was of average size, about five-foot-ten, clean-shaven with his sandy brown hair cut to regulation length and startlingly blue eyes.

Ben’s primary job as XO was to handle the load of administration for the unit to free up the commanding officer to keep the big picture. But Ben was far more than an administrative manager to Haley. He was the tactical lead for the unit, combat trained for expeditionary missions ashore during Kauai’s black bag operations. Although subordinate in position and several years her junior, he was the person she leaned on for advice, to bounce ideas off, and to handle problems before they turned into crises. He had wisdom and common sense well beyond what one could normally expect of a twenty-five-year-old junior officer and the crew deeply respected and admired him. He and Haley were not friends in the conventional sense—it was difficult to maintain a friendship within the hierarchy of a military command cadre—but they were partners in leadership on Kauai, and Haley had grown to trust him more than any other person she had ever known.

Haley glanced over and, noting Ben’s grim expression, whispered, What’s on your mind, XO?

Ben returned her gaze briefly before turning back to the display and replied, It’s probably nothing, Captain, but I don’t like how those three just decided to make a run north. He pointed to one contact on the screen. And this one in the middle, it was keeping pace with the others before, but now it’s dropping back. Why is that? He turned to Haley again and, noting her slight smile, grinned back and added, Sorry. I guess I’m getting a little jumpy.

No, no. Let’s pull the thread. Not like we have anything else going on. What are you thinking here?

Ben’s frown returned. We’re getting close to the jetties—maybe twenty minutes at this pace, so the window is closing. It’s now or never. They’ve had two chances before today to watch our tactics. We’ve had a couple of intercepts on those, so if they were around, they know how we roll: we go to the closest threat. So, if this is the real deal, I would expect one or both boats in front to be decoys, with the third carrying the threat.

Haley’s smile disappeared. So, what would you suggest?

Let’s move down half the distance. If it is nothing, then no harm done. If one of those guys is just screwing with us for setting up another security zone, a show of force might make them think twice.

And if this is the real deal?

Ben turned with a grim expression. Then we have twice the distance to engage and…defeat them.

That’s a carefully chosen word, defeat, Haley thought. He knows if this is the real thing, it will probably end up in a gunfight. What about those two to the north? It would be an excellent tactic to decoy us away in one direction while they come in from one-eighty out.

Yes, ma’am. Ben nodded. We should pull the second response boat up to backfill us here and tell him to focus north. If anything looks hinky, we can hustle back here to deal with it.

This was becoming one of those conversations with Ben that Haley dreaded, one of those calling for a decision on a life-or-death situation, the likes of which she could not even have imagined before she arrived on Kauai. As always, Ben had presented a straightforward case and logical solution, but Haley hesitated, willing for it to just go away.

Captain? Ben asked, quietly pressing the issue.

Well, girl, you wanted to be the boss. Time to do some of that captain shit. OK. As usual, you’ve sold me, XO. She turned to Hopkins across the bridge and said, Chief, let’s move south smartly. Make it half the distance to the boundary line.

Aye, aye, Captain, Hopkins replied as she advanced the thrust levers. Helm, left ten degrees rudder, steer two-four-five.

Chief, my rudder is left ten, coming to two four five, Seaman Mitchell Pickins, the helmsman, replied.

Very well. Zuccaro, give me a heads up when we come onto the new trackline.

Yes, Chief, the young petty officer responded.

Haley switched her communications panel setting to Radio 1 and pressed the transmit button for her headset. Five-zero-six, Orchid Actual, close on the tanker and take the lead, Haley said, directing the second response boat into Kauai’s former position leading the tanker.

Orchid, five-zero-six, WILCO, out, replied the coxswain on the second response boat.

As Kauai heeled to the right in her turn toward the new course, Haley smiled ruefully at Ben, getting a sympathetic smile in return. Hey, it breaks up the monotony, Captain.

I suppose. Hopefully, we have reached peak paranoia for today.

Captain, the bogie furthest east has turned and is heading southeast, Williams interrupted. The other two are continuing on an intercept track for the tanker, and the one furthest west is accelerating.

Right. Are any of the other contacts moving this way?

Negative, ma’am, Williams replied.

The news troubled Haley. This is bad. That target must see the response boat by now, and he’s behaving more aggressively. That can’t be a coincidence. Williams, give me an intercept course for the target lagging behind.

Yes, ma’am.

Haley activated her radio again. Four-two-three, Orchid Actual, close on, stop, and board the vessel on your port bow, she said, referring to the now-speeding boat. We’ll take the other northbound target.

Orchid, four-two-three, WILCO, out, came the disembodied voice from the radio receiver.

Haley watched on the tactical screen as the course vectors associated with Kauai and her two companions grew and rotated. She turned to Deffler and said, Chief Deffler, I need closeups on those two northbounds ASAP. Start with the one running further west.

On it, Captain, Deffler replied. Going to max continuous power, ETA one minute, fifteen seconds.

Good. Make it one pass, then proceed to the second target. Pass data directly to the boat as it comes in on Radio One.

Yes, ma’am, Deffler replied, keeping his eyes on the split screen showing the UAV’s flight telemetry and its on-board camera view. After slewing the camera to the target’s azimuth and down-angle, he selected the lock function as soon as the boat entered the field of view. It was a white recreational boat with green trim, about thirty-five feet long. Deffler keyed the transmit button and said, Four-Two-Three, Orchid Air. How do you read?

Loud and clear.

Roger. I’m coming up on your target now. I see three people on board, all adults. From the clothing, it looks like two males and one female. No weapons in sight. I’m running hyperspectral. Give me a sec while it processes.

Roger, copy all.

Less than three seconds later, the results of the hyperspectral imaging popped onto the screen: Explosives: Negative; Chemical Agents: Negative; Radiological Agents: Negative; Confidence: High.

Four-Two-Three, Orchid Air, negative for explosives, chem, and radiologicals, confidence high, Deffler radioed.

Roger. Thanks for the assist!

Good luck, Four-Two-Three, Deffler said, directing the UAV toward the second target. Turning to Haley, he added, One minute to the next target, Captain.

Very well. Same as before, please.

Yes, ma’am, Deffler replied and turned back to the screen.